UK Borders Bill

My Lords, passion comes in many styles; whether it is the style of the noble Earl or that of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, it is appropriately directed here, because destitution as an instrument of policy is not acceptable. My hope is that the amendment of my colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, will be carried—if not, then Amendments Nos. 15 or 17 should be carried. One of them has to be carried or there has be a cast-iron assurance from the Minister that a better amendment meeting this absolute need will be brought forward at Third Reading. The Still Human Still Here coalition offers a figure of 280,000 people who are caught in this destitution trap. If that is even remotely true it is a horrifying figure. Whether the information comes from the Rowntree work in Leeds, the Refugee Action leaflet or experience on the ground—some of us have met such people—the facts are the same. A couple of years ago I spoke with a very experienced priest of ours in Southampton who has worked in a number of the most deprived areas of this country in a lifetime’s ministry. He had recently been taken to a house in Southampton where destitute asylum seekers were, as it were, ““hot bedding”” in conditions which he said he had never seen in lifetime’s ordained ministry in this country. Water was coming through the roof and there were appalling conditions. It is worth saying that a number of such people are in this position because of previous failures in the system—loss of documents, poor or inappropriate legal advice, flawed decision-making, and failures in the education and training of adjudicators. It then needs to be said—as has been said by the noble Earl and by my colleague—that this instrument is simply ineffective. Most people who are subject to it do not, as a matter of fact, react to being removed or leaving the country by getting themselves on track. The large majority cannot: they do not have the papers; they have other difficulties; or they will not because, for very good reason, they are afraid to do so. The result, as my colleague the right reverend Prelate said, is that they are pushed into a twilight world, into poverty or into ill-health with little or no access to medical care except at points of crisis. They are also pushed into crime; they become vulnerable to trafficking; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, pointed out on Tuesday, as he has done on a number of occasions, they are a further driver to the kinds of resentment that are utterly contrary to the Government’s cohesion agenda. Those questions have to be taken into account before any attempt is made to justify destitution as an instrument of policy.